J. Zel Lurie: Galia Golan: Peace was never closer

Most interesting in the third week of Chautauqua's nine week season was a debate on peace between the optimism of Galia Golan and the pessimism of Aaron David Miller.

It happened quite by accident. The five morning lectures in the third week were devoted to the Middle East and Asia. Wednesday's lecturer was scheduled to be the Pakistan ambassador to Washington.

The ambassador had been grounded in Washington by a "wicked storm," Chautauqua's President Tom Becker told the audience of 6,000 which packed the amphitheater.

Chautauqua is not without resource, Becker said. "You have heard Aaron David Miller, who has advised four presidents on the Middle East, and Galia Golan, emeritus professor at the Hebrew University, talk individually. Now we will put them together and let them argue their positions."

White-haired Galia Golan opened the discussion by stating bluntly; "Peace between Israelis and Palestinians has never been closer." Not because the Israeli and Palestinian leaders are ready to compromise their needs but because both peoples demand it. They are tired of eternal tit for tat bombing as occurred in July.

Peace may never have been closer but it is still far away. Aaron David Miller outlined a few of the questions which the peace makers have wrestled with for decades.

"Borders," he began. "Where will the Palestinian state be?"

"Security," he continued. "What arrangements will be made with regard to demilitarization, border crossings, a NATO force to govern Jerusalem, whose capital will it be and how do you work out the municipal realities in the walled Old City?"

And most important, Miller continued: "What do you do when the divine overlaps the secular?"

Miller said that the White House had not taken a position on these core issues. Nor did he believe that President Obama, who is finding it impossible to fulfill his campaign promise to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, will devote the political prestige necessary to settle these problems. "He is no Jimmy Carter." Miller concluded. Carter made continued trips to Cairo and Jerusalem to get Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to sign a peace treaty.

Galia Golan made a strong case for the Arab Peace Initiative (API) which is eight years old. On the initiative of Saudi Arabia in 2002, the 22 members of the Arab League reversed the position they had taken in 1967 of no peace and no recognition of Israel. Now they want to recognize Israel's sovereignty over 78 percent of the land and a permanent peace with the Palestinians on the remaining 22 percent, which would be guaranteed by all of the Arab states.

In 2002 neither George W. Bush nor the government of Israel paid much attention to this revolutionary statement which offered peace with exchange of ambassadors with 22 Arab states and political entities. The Israel government continued to expand the settlements which will make the eventual agreement more difficult.

But the API is still the policy of the Arab League, Galia insisted.

The League has just endorsed the talks between Israel and Palestine.

Which leaves us to choose between the optimism of Galia Golan and the pessimism of Aaron David Miller.

I believe that the complex problems raised by Millerand other problems such as water and sewage will be settled in two or three years by George Mitchell with the agreement of the parties.

"Peace has never been closer," said Golan. But is it close enough? Can we wait two or three years while the complex problems of a two-state solution are solved?